No. 26 (05/09/97)     One month of the Euro-Atlantic integration (August 1997)

August 5
• Javier Solana, Secretary-General of the NATO, who arrived in Moscow with his family for a rest offered by the Russian government, had consultations with Boris Nemtsov, senior deputy prime minister with regard to the issues of European security, the relation between the NATO and Russia, the extension of the Atlantic Organization.
• Ukraine would become the member of the NATO, if not today, then tomorrow, said Jean-Luc Dehaene, Belgian prime minister in an interview made by the Ukrainian daily, Zerkalo Nedyeli. He said he did not agree with the opinion that the Atlantic Organization extended its borders to the East due to basically economic reasons.

August 6
• Hungary's accession to the NATO would serve the stability of region and the security of the country, said Árpád Göncz, President of the Republic in Prague at an international Symposium where he made a presentation on Hungary's Euro-Atlantic integration.

August 7
• ”The technical equipment of the Slovakian army is good, its members' preparedness is excellent and the enthusiasm with which they practice is marvellous”, evaluated his experience gained in Slovakia in the parliamentary committee of defence and foreign affairs General Sir Roger Wheeler, chief of the general staff of the land forces of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Dusan Slobodník, the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee assured the British General that Slovakia's foreign affairs aims were unchanged, and it wished to receive membership with full powers in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

August 8
• Referring to ”the impossible conditions of home politics and lack of unity among the parties” Zoran Thaler, Slovenian minister of foreign affairs resigned. The politician's resignation was evoked by the fact the opposition had made him responsible for Slovenia's failure to be included in the first wave of the NATO extension.
• First of all, the member states of the European Union would have to become the members of NATO so that the two organizations would be eventually constituted by the same members. Therefore in the next round it was not Romania or the Baltic states that would have to be discussed but the EU-member Austria, Sweden and Finland, wrote Erich Reiter, expert on strategic sciences at the Austrian Ministry of Defence, in his commentary published in Der Standard.

August 10
• In his speech made in Washington Javier Solana, Secretary-General of the NATO emphasized the importance of the leading role of the United States of America in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and pointed out that Europe, on her own, was unable to undertake the burdens of the extension of the NATO. Again he pointed out that the involvement of the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary was of paramount importance. Keeping the NATO closed would have maintained the old separation of Europe, he said.

August 20
• The Polish head of state assured Slovakia of his country's support. Aleksander Kwasniewski called the stability of the countries of the Central European region extremely important. ”We have no right to doubt the sincerity of Slovakia towards integration. As Slovakia wishes to accede to the European Union and the NATO, we shall support this attempt. The Polish assistance, however, cannot substitute the measures to be taken by the Slovakian nation and government”, stated Kwasniewski in Bratislava.
• In its report, GAO, the auditing organization of the U.S. Congress believes that the actual costs of the extension of the NATO may be higher than the amount defined in the study of the Ministry of Defence. In its analysis published in February the Ministry of Defence estimated the expenses related to the extension of the NATO at USD 27-35 billion in the next twelve years. The reason that the Court of Auditors have given for their position has been that certain assumptions and circumstances on which the government has based its calculation may alter as the process of the extension progresses and may cause the increase of additional costs.

August 22
• In Cracow Václav Klaus, Czech, Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, Polish and Gyula Horn, Hungarian heads of state discussed issues primarily related to the would-be NATO membership with full powers.

August 25
• ”Slovakia's foreign policy aim is unchanged: we want membership with full powers in the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization”, declared Ivan Gasparovic, the Chairman of the Slovakian Parliament when he received the delegation of the North Atlantic General Meeting. Subsequent to discussions, however, he admitted that the key to Slovakia's accession to the NATO was in the hand of the politics of Bratislava but he noted that he hoped ”the delegation will suddenly realize that an unjust decision was made at the Madrid Summit Meeting because our army is prepared for the accession”.

August 26
• Hardly had the process of the extension of the NATO begun, it had revived some of the old grievances between the West and Russia, what was more new misunderstandings had been added to the traditional suspicion. In the Russian public a widely spread understanding had evolved that the extension was not only harmful for Russia's security interests but violated the regulations mutually agreed under which the cold war had been ended, wrote Aleksei Arbatov, deputy chairman of the defence committee of the Russian Parliament in his article published in The New York Times.

August 27
• The Minutes with regard to the admission of Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland identified as countries that are acceding to the NATO, to be finalized by December are expected to be ratified by all the parliaments of all the member states in the Organization, although in some countries debates are expected to arise and it is not ruled out that certain parties will vote against the extension. The ratification period may last from two months to one year, thus at the scheduled time, in 1999 the actual accession of the new member states can be performed, this is what comes out from the brochure of the North Atlantic General Meeting published in Brussels. The report hall marked by the name of the Norwegian Jan Petersen describes the conditions one by one to which the ratification is subject to in each NATO country and in what respect genuine debate can be expected.

July 21-August 15
Upon the invitation of the Secretary-General of the General Meeting of the NATO Dr. Péter Sárdi, the head of the Office of Foreign Affairs of the National Assembly had consultations, organized by the Atlantic Liaison Office, between July 21-August 4 1997 at the Headquarters of the European Forces of the NATO (SHAPE) and the NYEU, then between August 4-15 1997 at the secretariat of the North Atlantic General Meeting he participated in the updating of the reports on the Central and Eastern European region. His visit gained special significance because subsequent to the decision made by the Madrid Summit Meeting of the NATO out of the three invited countries it was the Hungarian National Assembly that was granted the option to have consultations with these security politcs organizations.